the deepening ground

Many poets speak of the challenge of being a poet, but few have captured the sense of being out of place and misunderstood like Richard Wilbur in his translation of Charles Baudelaire’s stunning poem from “The Flowers of Evil.” My wife shared it with me tonight, having heard it herself for the first time on The Literary Life Podcast today. I first came to appreciate Wilbur’s poetry after reading “The Writer”, which always reminds me of my daughter. It’s not an exact fit; my daughter writes poetry, not stories and I don’t feel she’s in the same place as the speaker’s daughter, but I love the imagery of the starling “[b]eating a smooth course for the right window / And clearing the sill of the world.” There’s no more beautiful way to describe every loving parent’s wish for their children.

Here, however, we are given the albatross, which should immediately draw you back to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The fate of the great sea bird is worse, in a way, in Baudelaire’s poem, living ensnared, separated from its natural element, exiled among unappreciative and even jeering masses. I understand that feeling. Don’t let the lavender skies of the image above fool you; there’s no peace or celebration to be found in being “torn from [your] native space” to live “pitiably … amidst [the] hooting crowds.” And yet every true poet knows that feeling.

The Albatross from “The Flowers of Evil” by Charles Baudelaire

Often, for pastime, mariners will ensnare
The albatross, that vast sea-bird who sweeps
On high companionable pinion where
Their vessel glides upon the bitter deeps.

Torn from his native space, this captive king
Flounders upon the deck in stricken pride,
And pitiably lets his great white wing
Drag like a heavy paddle at his side.

This rider of winds, how awkward he is, and weak!
How droll he seems, who lately was all grace!
A sailor pokes a pipestem into his beak;
Another, hobbling, mocks his trammeled pace.

The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds,
Familiar of storms, of stars, and of all high things;
Exiled on earth amidst its hooting crowds,
He cannot walk, borne down by his giant wings.

(translated by Richard Wilbur)